INDIAN PICKLE

Food to be pickled (see recipe for details)
1 gal. strong vinegar
4 oz. curry powder
4 oz. dry mustard
1/2 pint salad (olive) oil
3 oz. ginger root, bruised
2 oz. tumeric
1/2 lb. shallots, peeled and lightly baked
2 oz. garlic cloves, peeled & baked
1/4 lb. salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

The flavoring ingredients of Indian pickles are a compound of curry powder, with a large proportion of mustard and garlic.

The following will be found something like the real mango pickle, especially if the garlic be used plentifully. To each gallon of the strongest vinegar put four ounces of curry powder, same of flour of mustard (some rub these together, with half a pint of salad oil), three of ginger bruised, and two of turmeric, half a pound (when skinned) of eschalots slightly baked in a Dutch oven, two ounces of garlic prepared in like manner, a quarter of a pound of salt, and two drachms of Cayenne pepper.

Put these ingredients into a stone jar; cover it with a bladder wetted with the pickle, and set it on a trivet by the side of the fire during three days, shaking it up three times a day; it will then be ready to receive gherkins, sliced cucumbers, sliced onions, button onions, cauliflowers, celery, broccoli, French beans, nasturtiums, capsicums, and small green melons. The latter must be slit in the middle sufficiently to admit a marrow-spoon, with which take out all the seeds; then parboil the melons in a brine that will bear an egg; dry them, and fill them with mustard-seed, and two cloves of garlic, and bind the melon round with pack-thread.

Large cucumbers may be prepared in like manner.

The other articles are to be separately parboiled (excepting the capsicums) in a brine of salt and water strong enough to bear an egg; taken out and drained, and spread out, and thoroughly dried in the sun, or before a fire, for a couple of days, then put into the pickle.

Any thing may be put into this pickle, except red cabbage and walnuts.

The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829

Comment: Pickle, as this recipe clearly shows, meant in the 19th century the preservative solution into which foods were packed, not the products practical people prudently pickled (sorry). The range of possibilities is amply described in the recipe, and we trust our readers are all entirely familiar with, for instance, the dimensions of a marrow-spoon so as to carry out the instructions given.

Some products--onions for instance--were pickled only to give them distinctive flavors, since they would preserve perfectly well on their own if kept in a dry cool place. Others, such as cucumbers, would perish and become pathetically putrid unless pickled for preservative purposes. We will stop now lest we P again.

Return to Recipe Index